Tired
by speechless97
Summary: Nobody would even think that the woman that lit up everybody else's day was even more messed up than the worst of them, but she was. Penelope had her demons too, just like the rest.


**[I have no idea where this came from, but I think it may be one of the best things I've ever written. Warning: it's really angsty and depressing, so don't read if you don't like that stuff and are going to complain.]**

"_We suffer primarily not from our vices or our weaknesses, but from our illusions. We are haunted, not by reality, but by those images we have put in their place."_ -Daniel J. Boorstin

Penelope was tired. And not the I'll-get-some-sleep-and-I'll-be-fine kind of tired. She was the kind of tired that she was terrified nothing could fix.

Some days, she wanted to go home, lay under the covers and cry. Just cry because of everything she had seen – every person's life she had dug through until their dignity was in shreds. She wanted to lock herself in her room, look through old pictures and remember a time were everything was far less complicated.

But she didn't have time for that.

She needed to be out there, helping people. She'd _promised_ herself that she would save as many people as she could.

So even on the days where she woke up in tears, on the days that Kevin called Morgan because he didn't know how to calm her down, she went to work. Always, she wiped her tears away, got dressed, put on her smile, and walked out the door.

And nobody would even guess. Penelope prided herself with that, at least.

Nobody would even think that the woman that lit up everybody else's day was even more messed up than the worst of them.

They all had demons.

Prentiss' was in the form of Ian Doyle, reaching out from every one of her dreams, reminding her every time she looked at herself in the mirror exactly who she belonged to and what she had done with him.

Morgan's was Carl Buford, making him feel like the confused little boy again every day. He was there when Derek saved anyone, there, in the back of his mind, reminding him that he would never, as hard as he tried, save his father.

Hotch's was Foyet. Every time he glanced upon his son, he could practically hear the gunshot as that monster killed Hayley. Every night, he would relive that day, wondering if he could've done anything to save her.

Reid's was Tobias Hankel, popping up in his mind every day with the same question. _Who do I kill? Which one of them dies? _Every time, Reid screamed in his mind that he didn't know, prayed for the voice to go away, but it didn't. The drugs seemed to be the only thing that helped, that sent him into another world.

JJ's sister haunted her still, everyone knew that. The temporary hurt in her eyes, the touch of her necklace, assured everyone that she still thought about it. She still wondered if it was her fault, if she could've done anything to help. Her determination every time a suicide case came up just proved that she was not over it – that she was just trying to save her sister every time.

Rossi's demons weren't just one person. They were all the people that he couldn't save. They were the kids who'd grown up with with no parents, still living with no answers twenty years later. They were the gifts that he'd sent over the years, just hoping to convey that he'd never forgotten about them.

They _all_ had things haunting them.

But Garcia, she had her problems too.

And yet none of them seemed as terrible as what the rest of them had gone through, as what they had seen.

She didn't want to be the complainer; she didn't want to burden them with her insignificant problems. She didn't deserve to.

But she'd kept it all bottled up for so long, and everything was starting to leak out at the seams.

There were the random days that Emily would find her crying in her office and ask, with concerned eyes, what was wrong.

There were the times that she'd cancel dinner with JJ or drinks with Morgan just because she had no desire to go anywhere, to even get out of bed.

She was just **tired**. That was her excuse.

And she was, but not the kind of tired that some rest would fix.

Penelope didn't know how they could all do it for so long – see the bodies, tell the grieving families, hear every detail of what the monsters had done.

For her, it all piled up and added to the overflowing pile of her own demons in the corner of her mind. The pile grew with every case, her burden got heavier, and she was terrified that it might just come spilling out one day.

But she didn't know how much longer she could keep it all inside. She didn't know how much longer she would last.

Today though; she could make it through today. She had to.

She was fine, after all, just_ tired_.

**[So that was just kind of some insight to Penelope's character. It just bugs me that she's so cheerful all the time, it makes me think that she's hiding something.**

**Anyway, review and tell me what you thought? Please? I honestly love this story and I want to know if it's just me :)]**


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